"The Life Changing magic of
tidying up!"
Kondo’s services command a
waiting list a mile long in Japan, but for the rest of us, her book breaks down
her radical, two-pronged approach to tidying. First, put your hands on
everything you own, ask yourself if it sparks joy, and if it doesn’t, thank it
for its service and get rid of it. Second, once only your most joy-giving
belongings remain, put every item in a place where it’s visible,
accessible, and easy to grab and then put back. Only then, Kondo says, will you
have reached the nirvana of housekeeping, and never have to clean again.
All of this sounded
wonderful. But as a working mother I can barely keep up with the
demands of daily life (laundry! groceries! deadlines!). But once I read
Kondo’s book, I got totally sucked in. It turns out, tidying really may be the way
to bliss. Here’s what I learned.
I’d always
tackled clutter by room—take on the office first, the bedroom next. Instead,
Kondo’s first rule is to tidy by category—deal with every single one of your
books at once, for example, otherwise they’ll continue to creep from room to
room, and you’ll never rein in the clutter. She advises beginning with
clothing, since it’s the least emotionally loaded of one’s things (books come
next, old photographs are much later), so as soon as I found a free afternoon,
that’s exactly what I did.
Lesson
#2: Respect Your Belongings
With my eyes now
open, I realized my closets had hit rock bottom. Everything had succumbed to a
mixed-up messiness. Kondo asks that you consider your clothing’s feelings:
Are they happy being squashed in a corner shelf or crowded onto hangers? Are
your hardworking socks really thrilled to be balled up? It had sounded out
there when I read it, but suddenly my clothes looked totally miserable.
Lesson #3: Nostalgia
Is Not Your Friend
As I started emptying the
closets, I opened boxes filled with letters and old photographs. Serious
mistake. Kondo knows what she’s talking about when she insists you put
blinders on and focus only on the category of stuff at hand. Read one old
letter, and suddenly you’re down a rabbit hole of nostalgia.
To be honest, I was probably
procrastinating. In theory, I was sold on the idea of living exclusively
with clothing that gives me joy, but I still had hang-ups: What will I be left
with? Will I have anything to wear to work? Will I have to sacrifice beloved
things, all for the sake of decluttering?
Then my 18-month-old son, Henry, wandered in, and there’s nothing
he loves more than recluttering. The afternoon was basically lost. If you
do this, don’t waste time like I did (and maybe book a babysitter for this
project).
Lesson
#4: Purging Feels SO Good
From then on, I followed
Kondo’s advice to a T. I gathered every piece of my clothing and put it in one
giant pile. While I normally tidy my clothes only when I’m on a long phone
call—distracted from the task at hand—today I wasn’t even supposed to listen to
music. Channeling Kondo, who says a prayer upon entering a client’s home, I lit
a candle, said a little prayer, and started digging through the mountain
of clothes.
Once I got to work, it was
so much easier and more fun than I’d thought. This question of joy gives you
permission to let go of off-color shirts bought on sale, dresses past their
prime, skirts that always clung uncomfortably. I realized I had many things
that seemed great in theory but weren’t actually my style—they’d be better on
someone else’s body or in someone else’s life (examples: an überpreppy skirt or
a corporate-looking jacket).
Six hours later, I’d filled 12 bags with non-joy-giving clothes.
Instead of panic, I felt relief—12 times lighter. It also felt like good karma:
The best stuff went to a consignment shop, and the decent stuff went to a
charity thrift store, off to see a new, hopefully better life.
Lesson #5: Fold, Don’t
Hang
Once you’ve sorted out the
things to discard—and only then—you can decide where the remaining things
should go. Rather than folded in a cubby or hanging in a closet, Kondo thinks a
lot of our clothing would be better off (or as she’d say, happier) folded in a dresser.
I hadn’t been using a
dresser at all before, but now, having begun with four overflowing closets, I
was down to enough clothing to fill one closet and one dresser. Pulling from
the tops, pants, and scarves now destined for the dresser, I started
folding using Kondo’s special technique.
Kondo’s vertical folding
technique makes everything easy to spot and hard to mess up (you aren’t
jostling a whole pile every time you take something out or put something back).
Folded this way, clothing looks like fabric origami, ready to line your drawers
in neat rows.
To keep these little folded packages standing at attention in the dresser, Kondo suggests using shoeboxes as
drawer dividers. A smaller box is perfect for square scarves, a deep one can go
on a bottom drawer for sweaters.
This is why people become evangelical about the KonMari method.
Once you’ve cleared away the clutter and put things away, your dresses and
skirts—the fun stuff, let’s be honest—can see the light of day. There’s breathing
room between pieces, so you no longer have to do that awkward arm wrestle with
the racks. All of which means you get a hit of joy—even hope!—just opening your
closet, whether you’re getting ready in the morning or planning a party
ensemble.
Lesson
#8: Rediscover Your Style
For years, I’ve worn the same rotation of
easy-to-grab, reliable pieces without dipping into all the color in my closets.
And there’s a lot of it—maybe because I grew up near the ocean, I have a
weakness for turquoise and pink and love a color mash-up and summertime prints.
I’d almost forgotten about these colors in the daily race to get out the door.
My Six Favorite Results,
A Month Later
#1 Getting
dressed is no longer a chore. Digging through an overstuffed closet was
painful. Now my closet feels richer, loaded up with good things that I’ll
get a little thrill from wearing, whether it’s while riding the subway or
dancing at a wedding.
#2 I’ve identified the true holes
in my wardrobe. It turns out
that I own only one pair of sandals that I love, and have no really joy-giving
jeans (who does? any suggestions?). Now, instead of shopping vaguely and coming
home with something I already have, I really know what to hunt for.
#3 I’m collecting things I really
love. This process has made
me pickier, and by not frittering away cash on so-so things, I’ve been able to
make more-thrilling purchases: a bold floor-length dress, a yummy Matteo quilt I’d eyed forever, an opalescent
abalone shell to hold my favorite earrings.
#4 Treating your things with respect makes them look better. And to coin a new Kondo-ism, sometimes respecting
something means letting it go. My son’s babysitter took a few
scarves that had been clumped in a sad pile and ties them into beautiful
headscarves. The look punches up the dreariest Monday morning.
#5 Cleaning is so much easier. Yes, I still have to
tidy—I’m guessing only the most devout, extreme practicers of the KonMari
method will “never have to clean again.” But now that everything flows into
order, the cleanups are much fewer and farther between.
#6 All sorts of decisions are falling into
place. This
might be the best payoff of all: Once you’ve looked at hundreds of things and
asked yourself if they give you joy, decision-making gets a lot
easier: which book to read, which projects to pursue, what to make for
dinner, whether to say yes or no to the many optional obligations that come our
way."
Good for her now for me, I can't wait to get all my papers in order and filed away. My closets with only the clothes I love and my drawers closets neatly stacked but for now, I'll get to doing my taxes.
Con amor,
Vero
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